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Monday, December 07, 2015

The lateral press at my gym has a problem that no one wants to fix — and for good reason, I have found out.

Yesterday, I sat down and noticed that the rubber grip on the left handle had come loose once again and slid forward. This creates an awkward situation where I have a good two or three inches of floppy rubber grip extending beyond my left hand, which makes feel lopsided but which is also a problem that gets worse as you use the machine: Every time you lift up, the grip slides off a little more.

I am including a visual aid so you can better understand what I’m talking about.

See, that flaccid floppiness should not be there.

It happens a lot on this one machine in particular, and because the grip had nearly slid all the way off, I decided I would be better than all the thoughtless people who had used the machine and simply left it as is. But here’s the thing: As often as the grip slips off, it’s actually pretty hard to move back into place. So when I put one fist on it and pulled as hard as I could down, my hand slid down the shaft, necessitating that I put it back at the top and try again. I tell you, I pulled as hard as I could, but my hand kept slipping down. I did not give up, however. I tried a twisting motion. I tried using two hands. Figuring I might have better leverage not in a sitting position, I got up and turned around and tried pulling it down again from a different angle, but despite my best efforts and a lot of grunting, I’d barely moved the thing.

And that’s when I noticed that people were looking at me because I was essentially going through the motions of jacking off the world’s most impossible dick — or maybe giving the world’s most impossible dick an Indian burn, which would also be awkward to watch. Regardless what the intent, it looks like you’re manipulating a dick or at least trying to suggest to everyone in a room that you’re manipulating a dick and doing it with gusto.

And so I got up and left the lateral press, leaving the problem for the next gym-goer to deal with. But that, I learned, is why no one at the gym wants to fix the one loose handle.